


Studies in Incorporeality

by luftballons



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Corruption, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:15:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28353024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luftballons/pseuds/luftballons
Summary: One day, while waiting for the Warrior of Light to return from their adventures, Emet-Selch notices Ardbert. With the only other person who can see him gone, Ardbert reluctantly starts to talk to Emet-Selch. The longer he spends with him, the more he misses him. The more he misses him, the more he hates himself.Or, the haunter has become the haunted; the ghost occasionally ghosted.
Relationships: Ardbert/Branden | Dikaiosyne, Ardbert/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

The first time it happens, Ardbert isn’t sure what to make of it. The Ascian stares directly at him, almost as if he can see him, but he says nothing. Ardbert can’t quite meet his gaze, like he’s unsure of the consequences. Instead, he watches the Warrior of Light walk off, heading towards the next task and next adventure. Held by indecision, he isn’t sure if he should follow or if he should stay.

The second time, the Ascian looks from the Exarch and then back to Ardbert and then back to the Exarch, like he’s trying to do some kind of calculation. Ardbert watches him as he thinks it through. But his mind tells him it’s just a trick, and that the Ascian is looking not at him, but in the way the Warrior of Light had gone. He is merely trying to tell what their connection is, and it has nothing to do with him.

The third time, the party has already left. The Ascian stands alone watching them go, having made some dramatic speech about how he couldn’t possibly get his hands dirty and actually _help_. Ardbert isn’t entirely sure on the details, he doesn’t make it a habit to listen to what the Ascian has to say. But this time, the Ascian stares at him expectantly, like he’s waiting for Ardbert to say something. Or maybe, more precisely, he looks at him like you might observe an animal in a traveling circus, waiting to see if he’ll do anything interesting.

But Ardbert has more patience than the Ascian does, evidently, because he asks, “Well, Warrior of Light, won’t you come along?”

\---

The Warrior of Light—the real one, not him—seems to have an infinite supply of time. And although there are moments where Ardbert follows, he allows the Warrior a measure of privacy. That, and, he’s had his share of fetch quests for a lifetime. But, well, being a ghost, he doesn’t have much in the way of things to do otherwise.

“You really are so predictable, aren’t you?” The Ascian, Emet-Selch, the only other person on this whole godsforsaken planet who can see him, however, has unfortunately taken to alleviating that particular problem. “You follow them like a lost puppy, but then you draw back, just before it gets good. Do you not wish to see? Oh, the things that they do! The limitless energy, running back and forth and back and forth all in the name of the greater good and a few meager popotos for the people of Norvrandt. You did that once, too, as I recall. The ceaseless giving, the tireless toil, hoping only to give of yourself and caring not for the manner of reward that awaits.”

“I don’t remember asking your opinion,” Ardbert responds petulantly. He doesn’t look at Emet-Selch, he looks out through the window at the Crystarium, haunting the Warrior of Light’s room like a regular fixture at a haunted hotel. It’s not really where he thought his life would end up. Maybe it would be better to, at the very least, go haunt the bar. At least at the bar Emet-Selch would look rather odd, speaking to no one.

“No— _you_ prefer the sullen silence. And what would they think, to see you here? Wallowing in self-pity, while they are out there, trying to fulfill their duties—”

 _That_ catches Ardbert’s attention, anger rising like the flaring of an old wound, he turns around quickly, drawing his weapon in his rage. He doesn’t need to be told to know who Emet-Selch means. His friends, turned sin eater, out there somewhere sowing destruction. Would the Warrior of Light stop them, too? Ardbert can only hope. But there is little room for hope in the way he wishes to slice Emet-Selch in two. Not that it would do any good, of course.

Emet-Selch just laughs, watching Ardbert’s impotent display with clear amusement. “What are you going to do? Axe me?”

With a frustrated shout, Ardbert swings the axe down, but of course he doesn’t make contact. It shimmers as it falls through Emet-Selch’s body. He swears for a moment that Emet-Selch’s amusement turns to disappointment, but it doesn’t last long enough for him to be sure.

\---

The bar isn’t so bad, really, Ardbert has come to find. It’s much more lively than the Warrior of Light’s room, anyroad, and he sometimes he catches snippets of conversations concerning the whereabouts of particularly powerful sin eaters. From somewhere deep within him stirs a will to fight he has not felt in many, many years. A lust for adventure.

Emet-Selch does not think the bar is so bad either. Nor, as it turns out, is he afraid to look like he’s talking only to himself. Perhaps Ardbert should’ve seen it coming. Given that Garleans weren’t exactly known on the First, with his third eye the man stands out terribly anyway. Add onto that his strange clothes and his flamboyant hair, and he draws a lot of looks.

And yet in spite of the way people look at him, in spite of the whispers that fill the corners of the area, Emet-Selch seems perfectly content, a player at the center of his stage.

“I’m surprised you aren’t traipsing around Il Mheg with them,” Emet-Selch says all at once, gesturing with the glass in his hand. It seems more like a prop than a drink. Ardbert isn’t sure he’s seen him drink from it once yet. If he weren’t a ghost, he’d almost have to wonder if Emet-Selch was.

“They don’t need me holding their hand,” Ardbert replies. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at literally anyone but Emet-Selch, trying to focus on the other patrons instead of his new companion. “If you wanted to be with them so badly, why didn’t you go?”

Emet-Selch shrugs dramatically in response, “oh, I have no interest in the Fae folk. Like babysitting a rambunctious group of children, always asking you for one more favor at the end of a magic-shaped-sword.”

Ardbert looks over at Emet-Selch, surprised by his oddly specific complaints. It must show on his face, the way the corner of his mouth turns up in amusement as he imagines the Fae getting the better of Emet-Selch. Were their magicks too strong even for him? Although he doubts it, he hopes very much that’s the case.

“What? Am I not allowed to feel annoyance from time to time? Yes, even I have known the sentiment.” Ardbert didn’t ask for an explanation, but Emet-Selch gives it anyway, shaking his head. “A hassle, is all. A waste of my breath, to try and reason with them. I’m far more content to wait here.”

Emet-Selch does not say “with you,” but there is something about the way he speaks that seems to imply it. Ardbert frowns, unable to school his emotions or his thoughts, always impulsive, always wearing his heart on his sleeve. What could Emet-Selch possibly want from _him_? He doesn’t like the implication. He does his best to forget it.

\---

“Are you crying?”

Ardbert looks up, annoyed with the ease that Emet-Selch used to simply appear in moments he least wanted it. At least he had the decency to give the person he was haunting some space in vulnerable moments. Emet-Selch didn’t seem to know common courtesy.

“No, definitely not,” Ardbert says, definitely crying, “it’s a trick of the light, is all, ghost stuff.”

“Now, now,” Emet-Selch tells him, moving across the room to stand at his side. Except when they had sat next to each other at the bar, it’s the closest that Emet-Selch has chosen to be. It would make his skin crawl, if Ardbert had any. As it is, it gives him ghostly goosebumps, and a strange unease he does not know what to do with. Funny, if this was the Ascian’s idea of comfort, it was anything but. “Whatever it is that happened, this isn’t the worst you’ve endured, is it? After all, you caused the Flood. Anything else should seem infinitesimally more minor, I should imagine.”

Ardbert lunges for him, running through him and ending up on the ground face first. Gravity shouldn’t affect ghosts, he decides. There should be some upside to this.

\---

“What if we play a game to pass the time? You and I, the silent watchers of this grand play,” Emet-Selch suggests. “Grand though it may be, there is _so_ much time spent on absolutely nothing!” He yawns and stretches his hands high over his head. It’s no wonder he needs to stretch, with his terrible posture.

“A game.” Ardbert repeats flatly, watching him with uncertainty. He’s not quite sure what passes for games with Ascians. Probably taking children and feeding them to sin eaters.

“Oh, do not look at me so. _I_ did not murder you, that was a choice you made perfectly well without my intervention,” Emet-Selch waves his hand dismissively. But by now Ardbert is getting used to his barbs, even if they still hurt just as much every time. “A little pastime. Or should I go bother the Exarch instead? Perhaps he will be better company.”

Ardbert frowns. This is a new tactic but an unfortunately effective one. The Exarch is critical to their plans, and the less Emet-Selch harasses him the better. If Ardbert’s only contribution to this team effort is to keep Emet-Selch distracted, at least that’s something.

“What kind of game?” Ardbert asks, as long-suffering as he can possibly muster.

Emet-Selch’s eyes light up. But Ardbert knows well it’s not because he agreed to play; it’s because he _agreed_. And now Emet-Selch knows exactly which cards to play against him.

\---

“Why haven’t you told them?” There’s an annoyance to Emet-Selch’s words today. That’s new. Ardbert really hates that he’s starting to understand Emet-Selch’s moods, starting to read between the lines of what he says. He doubts he’ll ever fully understand the man, but he can now tell the difference between when the Ascian is bullshitting him and when he’s showing something like a genuine emotion. They have spent far too much time together.

Case and point, they’re currently sitting at the top of the Laxan Loft together, staring out at the expanse of Lakeland. Not at the bar. Not at the Warrior of Light’s Room. No, they went on this excursion _together_. But as much as he hates himself for it, he hates the idea of Emet-Selch getting any kind of an advantage more than anything else. There’s nothing, he tells himself over and over again, that Emet-Selch can learn from him. There’s nothing he can gain from their conversations. He ignores the ever-present follow up question: then why does he keep doing this?

“Why haven’t I told them what?” Ardbert asks, kicking at stone with his foot. It doesn’t move, but Emet-Selch leans down and picks it up, tossing it into the distance. With his magic, it skips along the air as if it were gliding over a lake, before falling somewhere in the distance.

“Don’t play coy, I’m not in the mood,” Emet-Selch responds, confirming Ardbert’s suspicions. Had something gone wrong, back at Ascian HQ? (Okay, he’ll admit it, he has no idea what Emet-Selch does when he’s not hanging around him.) Or better yet, had the Warrior of Light come up with some kind of advantage that was foiling whatever plans Emet-Selch had for the First?

“No, I’m being honest. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re lucky if I know what you’re talking about even half the time you talk,” Ardbert shrugs.

“About me,” he says, like he’s accusing Ardbert of refusing to speak to his friends about his lover. Ardbert hates how that feels, a chill running down his spine.

“Why would I?” The answer comes too quick, the disgust too obvious, “it wouldn’t change anything. And they probably already figure you can see me anyway. I’m not wasting my breath.”

Emet-Selch’s expression sours. And then he disappears.

\---

For several days, Ardbert is alone. The Warrior of Light has gone to Rak’tika. They have much to do there, and it is a long journey. Emet-Selch, he believes, is avoiding him. He’s not sure why it feels so lonely. It’s a thought that scares him.

\---

Right around the time that he’s given up and has decided to manifest himself to Rak’tika to join the party, Emet-Selch shows up. His first thought, as always, is how unwelcome the intrusion is. But the relief that he feels is palpable. Likely to the both of them.

“Eternity can feel so lonesome, can’t it?” Emet-Selch asks him. He pops a grape into his mouth off a bunch he’s brought with him for some reason. Ardbert isn’t sure why he couldn’t just snack alone. “And you’ve only just a taste of it. What has it been now, a hundred years? That’s hardly any time at all.”

“Hello to you too,” Ardbert huffs. Emet-Selch isn’t wrong, though. It had been.

“It’s worse now, isn’t it?” The Ascian continues, “You have hope again. I can see it. Before, you were hardly a thought floating around in the aether. You barely manifested a form! I thought we might lose you to the Lifestream. But then they came and there was that tiny little spark—someone who could _see_ you. And that’s worse, isn’t it? Having hope, only to have it pried from you.”

Ardbert says nothing. He doesn’t like where this lecture is going. He doesn’t like that Emet-Selch is lording this over him. Because they both know this isn’t about the Warrior of Light. The Warrior of Light did not haunt bars with him and play games and climb to the tops of impossibly tall spaces to survey the world. What was his game here? To break him? He was already broken.

Emet-Selch steps close to him, plucking off another grape and eating it. He looks out the window and down at the Crystarium. It glitters in the night sky, returned as it is to Lakeland. “Do you see it, O Warrior of Light? The hope on their faces?”

Ardbert feels the same unease he’d felt standing next to him countless times before. He does not like where this conversation is going. Where the obvious conclusion is.

“It’s almost better don’t you think?” Emet-Selch leans in close, one hand hovering over his shoulder. It takes considerable precision, for him to stand so close as if he really were leaning on him. He’d fall right through if he moved even an ilm more. But as it is, he speaks quiet and right into Ardbert’s ear. It would almost be intimate, if Ardbert weren’t certain that what will follow will cause him to want to punch him in the face yet again. “They will bring hope to this entire star, and then, like you, they will _destroy_ it. I couldn’t have written a better story myself.”

Thanks to his lack of corporeality, Ardbert manifests himself right out of that situation. He reappears at the highest point of the Laxan Loft and screams with the frustration of 100 years of pent-up rage.

\---

“Stand still.” Emet-Selch readies a dart, looking through Ardbert at the dartboard behind him.

“All five shots says you won’t hit,” Ardbert responds.

“An entirely unfair bet, as I’ve said several times now,” Emet-Selch responds, looking over at the shots they—well, Emet-Selch—had bought on the table next to them, “ _you_ can’t even drink. What happens when I win? Will you stare at them?”

“Okay, but I’m pretty sure you can’t get drunk,” Ardbert counters. “So it’s the same isn’t it?”

“No, no, not at all. I _could_ get drunk, but I choose not to. You cannot _choose_ to drink those. Give me something better. Surely you have something worth betting.”

“I’d have to know what you wanted from me for that,” Ardbert sighs, but it’s mostly feigned. It has become so easy, this banter, shaped by all of the time they have spent together.

“Ah, I suppose you have a point,” Emet-Selch rarely concedes. He places one hand on his hip and the other at his chin, considering. “Fine, I have come up with my price: if I hit, you will regale me with tales of your heroism.”

Ardbert knows better than to think Emet-Selch just wants to be told a story. As always, he is alert for the adder lying in the grass of Emet-Selch’s words. But he nods all the same. “Fine, a story. If you’re having trouble sleeping, it’ll do just the trick. But you’re going to lose.”

“We shall see about that!”

Naturally, they both cheat. Just as Emet-Selch pulls back to throw, Ardbert jumps wildly with his axe, trying to distract him. The dart inevitably goes off-target, but Emet-Selch uses his magic to redirect it, through Ardbert’s ghostly form just as the bet required, and into the bullseye behind him.

“Looks like I win,” he smirks, pleased with himself. Ardbert supposes he should’ve seen that coming.

\---

In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have let Emet-Selch fall asleep on the Warrior of Light’s bed. But they were off sleeping in the Greatwood somewhere, not due back for many days. They’d talked well into the night and he had regaled Emet-Selch as promised, and for once Emet-Selch did not try to berate him. He knows it is only a matter of time before it comes. For now, the Ascian looks almost peaceful sleeping there. Ardbert sits at the foot of the bed and not for the first or last time, questions his life choices.

\---

“I’ll be gone for a few days, do try to stay in one piece,” Emet-Selch tells him, “although I know how much you’ll miss me.”

“I won’t,” Ardbert lies. He likes the lie much better than the truth. The truth makes him hate himself more.

“You will,” Emet-Selch corrects, smiling sweetly in that way he does that isn’t sweet at all. It’s just dramatic. Everything about him is dramatic.

“Are you going to tell me where you’re going?” Ardbert asks, expecting the answer will be no.

Emet-Selch surprises him. “Oh, I’m going to go be the hero of the hour in Rak’tika! Isn’t that fortuitous? I’ll play the part very well, I think.”

Ardbert can’t help but show that surprise on his face. The “hero”? For one awful moment, he can’t help but think he’s rubbed off on him. He silences that and tells himself not to think that ever again. He can’t change this Ascian. And even if he could, Emet-Selch didn’t deserve redemption.

“You don’t believe me,” Emet-Selch feigns a pout, looking ever-so-hurt at the idea. “But it’s true. They’ve run into a bit of a problem with the Lifestream. And by that I mean, they’ve run into it. Literally.”

“The Lifestream?” Ardbert asks, his eyes wide, and his chest gripped tight with fear. Was the Warrior of Light—were they—no, it was too much to even think.

“No, no, it’s not our dear friend,” Emet-Selch clearly has no problems predicting Ardbert after all this time. “The miqo’te—sorry, the mystel woman—”

“I know what a miqo’te is,” Ardbert interjects.

“Right, well, it’s her. She’s got a nasty habit of it, poor thing! Always jumping right in when the situation seems dire. They need someone to pluck her out of it.”

Ardbert just stares for a moment, a little incredulously. “You can just do that? Just pull someone from it?”

“Can’t everyone?” Emet-Selch asks, like he’s bored of the question already.

“Well, obviously not!” Ardbert responds, unhindered by Emet-Selch’s tone. He knew Ascians were powerful, of course, but the _ease_ with which Emet-Selch tells him all of this is beyond him. Emet-Selch says it like he’s telling Ardbert that he’s going to have a coffee on the way home, and perhaps he’ll get a biscuit to to go along with it.

“They used to,” he shrugs. But his tone has a finality to it Ardbert hasn’t heard before, one that stops any questions before they come. Ardbert is left alone with his thoughts, and Emet-Selch goes to Rak’tika to perform a casual miracle.

\---

“That’s it!” Emet-Selch calls, watching Ardbert attack a practice dummy. Well, “attack” is maybe too liberal a word for what he’s really doing. He is swinging his axe around at it, though no contact is made.

The point is, that he’s practicing. It’s a strange thought, that Emet-Selch would be the one to remind him that he’ll lose his form, his very stance, if he doesn’t keep it up. “And what good is a tank that can’t keep the enemy’s attention,” Emet-Selch had reminded him, “you literally have one job.”

So here they are, out in the field with some practice dummies Emet-Selch no doubt stole from the Guard. But it’s thrilling to be practicing again, even if it’s pointless. It’s that same spark of hope that’s been growing, burning brighter than before. He wants to be strong. He wants to be in shape.

Magic dances from Emet-Selch’s fingertips to toy with the practice dummy he’s targeting, and the two of them go at it for hours, like a dance.

When they’re done, neither of them sweating but both bored of the exercise, he thinks he could not have imagined a stranger practice partner even if he’d had all of Emet-Selch’s thousands of years.

\---

“I want to try something,” Emet-Selch says quite suddenly.

It is night and they are in Lakeland, again. It’s strangely peaceful and the clear sky shows the stars. The Warrior of Light had returned the night sky to Rak’tika, too. Three Lightwardens down and two to go. Ardbert is starting to have hope again, but Emet-Selch’s warning feels like it’s etched into his heart. What would happen if they felled all the Lightwardens, only to fail?

He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts he doesn’t answer and Emet-Selch snaps his fingers trying to get his attention. “Warrior of Light? Are you listening?” Emet-Selch never calls him by his name. And the title hangs so heavy on his shoulders, now. A title he no longer deserves, if he ever did. “I said, ‘I want to try something!’”

“Oh,” Ardbert replies, looking back over at him instead of the night sky. “what are we trying this time?” Perhaps he really should be asking when this became so _routine_.

“You’ll see. I’d hate to ruin the surprise.” Emet-Selch turns to him and steps close. “Hold out your hand.”

“Are you going to hold it? Didn’t know you were the type,” Ardbert quips, knowing full well that he could not.

Emet-Selch just smiles, a strange, curious smile Ardbert doesn’t recognize even after all of the time they have spent together now. He places his hand just above Ardbert’s and he looks down at their hands together. The smile fades into concentration. He’s never seen Emet-Selch put such thought or effort into anything. And for a moment nothing happens.

And then, shining between their hands is a light. A brilliant, almost blinding light, like the purest, most beautiful form of magic he’s ever seen. But it pales in comparison to what happens next.

He _feels_ Emet-Selch.

Not on his hand, but in his very soul. It is warm and welcome, an incredible feeling of comfort that he can’t quite figure out how to explain, only that he can feel with every fiber of his being. Ardbert’s eyes widen and his mouth flies open like a right idiot and he stares at Emet-Selch.

“Seven hells—” Ardbert finally manages.

Emet-Selch stays for a moment longer and then pulls away, his breathing a touch labored, and the strain showing on his face. But he looks immensely proud of what he’s accomplished.

In the wake of that overwhelming and incredible touch, Ardbert feels empty.


	2. Chapter 2

Ardbert is haunted by Emet-Selch’s touch. How warm it had felt. Part of him is worried that perhaps Emet-Selch has irrevocably marked his soul. Another part of him, a distant, quiet part, hopes that he has. Ardbert tries not to listen to that. But he cannot stop looking back on it with fondness and wonder.

Emet-Selch has not attempted the same recently. In fact, in the days after, Emet-Selch failed to address it at all. Somehow, every time Ardbert was about to talk about it, the Ascian had some much more pressing thing to suddenly discuss.

Worst of all, Ardbert is distracted. He is distracted when the Warrior of Light comes to speak to him and tells him about their adventures. He listens, but his expression is distant and far off. There’s pity on the Warrior of Light’s face, and he thinks that they must assume that he’s sad. In some ways, they are not wrong. But not for the reasons that they think.

\---

“Where are you?” Ardbert asks the night air, futilely. No response comes.

\---

It’s about starting small, he has decided. So he’s currently squatting so that he’s eye-level with the bar, or more accurately, eye-level with a shot glass he swears was made for a dwarf.

“Easy does it, easy does it, just focus Ardbert, focus on that bloody glass,” he psychs himself up along side the glass, trying to imagine himself touching it. Maybe if he just visualizes what it would be like to touch, then maybe even for a second, he’d interact with it.

(For a moment, he cannot help but think again about that perfect look of concentration on Emet-Selch’s face. What level of focus would he need to be on that level?)

“Okay, here goes nothing,” he pulls his arm back and then rushes forward, like he’s going in for a punch, except his hand is flat and he’s hoping to making contact between the glass and his palm. He hesitates just before it hits and then falls through it, slapping the counter. “Damnit!”

Long, white-gloved fingers pick up the glass and turn it on its side on the bar. “Was this what you were hoping for?”

Ardbert chokes back a gasp and forces down the relief so he shows neither, although he has the lurking suspicion that Emet-Selch sees all anyway. The Ascian takes a seat at the bar and orders a glass of wine, looking down at Ardbert with amusement in his eyes. “My, my, what a compromising position for you.” He says, kicking his foot out lazily, where it would land on Ardbert’s thigh if he could touch him.

Ardbert doesn’t like the implication in his tone. He’s come to know many things about Emet-Selch, but he hasn’t known him as being particularly interested in sexual pleasure.

“Where’ve you been?” Ardbert asks, and it’s almost an accusation.

“Oh you know, here and there,” Emet-Selch says with a shrug. He picks up his wine glass and drinks from it, mostly it seems, so he can stare over the edge of the glass at him. “It’s quite hot in Ahm Araeng, you know. It isn’t good for my complexion. And, oh, how side-tracked they are getting! An entire town, I think, will soon have captivated their attentions, sending them on all manner of errands. Typical. Can’t ever get them to focus on the end, always so distracted.”

“They’re just trying to help.” Ardbert stands, watching Emet-Selch for a moment.

“Won’t you sit? Stay with me?” Emet-Selch asks, canting his head to the side as if Ardbert has displayed some new behavior he wasn’t quite prepared for yet.

Ardbert wants to say no. He wants to make Emet-Selch wait for every moment Emet-Selch had left him alone. He wants this man to know solitude and to understand that he is not here for his amusement. That he is not his plaything. He wants to be strong.

But in this, he is finding, he is weak. And so he sits at the barstool next to Emet-Selch, and Emet-Selch wards off anyone who tries to occupy the same seat and they talk well into the night about nothing at all. Emet-Selch does not once offer to touch him again.

\---

“Shall I send you on a fetch quest?” Emet-Selch muses, as he watches Ardbert pace back and forth through the bedroom. He has stolen one of the apples off of the bowl on the table and is munching on it lazily.

“What?” Ardbert asks, stopping, finally, to look at him.

“Oh, I thought a little bit of roleplay might help raise your spirits,” he explains, and then when he talks again he’s putting on dramatic airs, playing a part: “Brave hero, please! You’re the only one who can help me.”

“Stop it. You know I can’t fetch anything.” Ardbert crosses his arms over his chest and levels Emet-Selch a flat look. The Ascian just stands and comes closer.

“But you’re the one everyone is talking about, aren’t you? The Warrior of Light, come to save us all!”

“A lot of good that did anyone, it’s all light outside if you hadn’t noticed. You’re going to need the Warrior of Darkness, now, I can’t help.” Ardbert takes a step back and away from him.

“How could you be so cruel?” Emet-Selch asks, still as the ‘villager,’ or whatever part he thinks he’s playing.

“Stop it. And stop calling me the Warrior of Light. You know full well that’s them, now. And I have a name, you know. You don’t have to use a title.” Ardbert doesn’t know why this suddenly bothers him so much, but his anger is obvious and it’s enough to stop Emet-Selch from playing around.

More than enough. Emet-Selch’s expression sours and the apple in his hand disintegrates in a puff of magic. “Why should I?” When he asks, he sounds like a child. “You always use mine.”

“What?” Ardbert asks, staring at him for a moment, dumbfounded by his remark.

“Forget it,” Emet-Selch replies, and in his finality, he departs.

\---

Their outings have become something of a farce at this point, Ardbert recognizes. Emet-Selch is sitting, fully clothed, in a hot spring. They are in the northern part of Lakeland, and the soldiers of the guard who are here actually relaxing are staring at his willingness to ruin such fine fabric. Strictly speaking, Ardbert is fully clothed, too, of course. But that’s different. He’s a ghost, and he cannot feel the water although he sits in it next to his strange companion.

Was there a point to this? Was Emet-Selch doing this on purpose? If there is, he can’t find one, except that Emet-Selch clearly has a flair for the dramatic. A flair, it seemed, that was to be the center of their conversation today.

“Do you think, when they make the play of your life, that it will be comedy or tragedy?” Emet-Selch asks, splashing water at him. It goes right through.

“Neither, if I have any say in it,” Ardbert replies.

“No, no, there’s only two. You have to answer within the choices presented, you don’t get to go off and start making new categories willy-nilly! Why, that would undermine the very _foundation_ of theatre itself. Comedy or tragedy, Warrior of Light, which is it?”

“Neither,” Ardbert says again with a shrug, “the commonfolk aren’t concerned with categories. They just want to hear a good story.”

Emet-Selch groans. “You’re no fun.”

“I never pretended like I was,” Ardbert replies, watching the water that the Ascian splashes at him fall through his form. But he decides to at least throw Emet-Selch something. “What about you, comedy or tragedy?”

“Ooh, what an excellent question!” Emet-Selch lights up now that he’s being _asked_. “Of course, the answer is tragedy, but you already knew that. In all the lives I lived you could write several of them. Each one distinct, seemingly unrelated.”

Ardbert doesn’t want to know about all the tragedies of Emet-Selch’s life. He has no doubt they involve awful things for the Source and every other star besides. And yet he knows too that Emet-Selch will spin them into a story that makes it sound like everything was difficult for him and him alone, with no regard for the people who are in them.

And yet, he also does want to know. Because he spends so many of his waking hours with this man, and because he has impossibly grown to like the sound of his voice.

So invariably, he lets Emet-Selch talk. He tells him of far off empires and ill-begotten sons, and of the likelihood of patricide. It does sound like it has the complexity of theatre, although Ardbert hasn’t attended many plays.

At the same time, he cannot help but wonder why Emet-Selch sounds so unaffected when he speaks of it, as if it happened to someone else’s family and someone else’s sons. He wonders if it’s just a front, though he can’t quite decide for what end. Was Emet-Selch hiding the fact he cared? Or was he hiding the fact that he _didn’t_?

\---

“Why won’t you just _touch_ me again?”

In the middle of a conversation about the weather, Ardbert finally breaks. His shoulders heaving, breathing hard from the outburst, he stares at Emet-Selch, who just looks back at him calmly, unmoved by his words. Ardbert runs up to him, and then through him.

Emet-Selch shivers dramatically. “That tickles!” he complains, although it is clear it did not.

“Answer me!” Ardbert says, still breathing hard, he turns around again and runs through him again.

Emet-Selch watches him like he’s a pitiful creature. An animal, fighting against bonds. Facing him once again, Ardbert moves close, trying to slam his fist against Emet-Selch’s shoulder over and over again. But it just goes through, every time.

“Damnit, I know you can do it, why did you—why did you give that to me only to never bring it up again? Why did you let me think I could have something like that and then pretend it never happened? I don’t understand you!” Frustration rolls off of him in waves, and water pricks at his eyes. He’s aware he’s having a temper-tantrum, but Emet-Selch’s complete lack of response just drives that point home more.

Emet-Selch waits. He waits until Ardbert grows tired of trying to hit him. He waits until Ardbert falls to his knees on the ground. He waits until Ardbert cries, his face in his hands. And then he gets down on the floor next to him, and speaks calmly, close to his ear and intimate. “Are you quite finished?” He asks.

“Just go away,” Ardbert replies through his hands, willing the tears to stop. He is too tired to manifest himself somewhere else, although he also feels like he’s tired enough to stop manifesting at all.

“That’s not very nice,” Emet-selch chides him, in that same tone, like a parent watching a moody child. “Why don’t you try asking for what you want nicely?”

“Just go away, _please_ ,” Ardbert corrects.

Emet-Selch, of course, hadn’t meant the correction to be for that request, but given that it is he laughs and stands, “Very well then, Warrior of Light. Until next time. And, oh, do watch for the rain tonight. I hear it’ll be a downpour.”

\---

For several days, there is no one. Ardbert figures that’s his due.

\---

“Do you know how _absolutely_ boring mining is?” Emet-Selch complains from the highest point at the Laxan Loft. It is starting to feel like the castle of their own kingdom, a kingdom that exists not quite in any plane of being, but somewhere else, wherever it was that their souls had touched.

Ardbert expects this, too, is a form of punishment. It was here, after all, that Emet-Selch had touched him. But now he feels like he’s going mad trying to chase it again. They never talked about his outburst again. Which would be a blessing, if it didn’t also signal the curse that they still have never talked about his touch.

“You’re not a miner, are you? They are, and it’s excruciating to watch,” Emet-Selch continues. “Not only that, but they’re completely wrong about the entirety of the Qitari history! I’ve half a mind to correct them myself, as the only person apparently qualified to answer any historical questions.”

Ardbert just hums an assent, but he’s not really listening. Most of Emet-Selch’s complaints are fairly pointless, he’s learned, so he just lets them happen. He’s still preoccupied about touching. Crying about it hadn’t made it better, not really. It just made it worse.

“That’s not really an answer, you know,” Emet-Selch says, stepping up next to him. He sends a bolt of magic off to clear a wandering monster that’s getting a little too close to their spot. _Their_ spot, what a concept.

“Hm? No, I’m not a miner,” Ardbert responds finally, looking over at him.

“What’s gotten into you?” Emet-Selch asks, like he doesn’t know.

“I’m tired,” Ardbert responds, “maybe I’ll just head back.”

“Wait,” Emet-Selch reaches out, hovering his hand just above Ardbert’s shoulder, “I’m not done with my history lesson, you know.”

But Ardbert isn’t in the mood. He shakes his head and manifests himself back to the Crystarium. Emet-Selch, thankfully, does not follow.

\---

“Brooding so really doesn’t suit you.”

Ardbert, local bar ghost, is busy haunting the very back of the bar. He’s not just brooding (although he is brooding!) he is also listening to a mystel rant to anyone who will listen to him about the particularly large sin eater he is on the tail of. The _tail_ , because she, like this man, is a mystel.

But when Emet-Selch speaks, he distracts him from the story and, indeed, any hope he had of hearing more of the mystel sin eater who hunted her prey with bow and arrow.

Ardbert frowns. “I’m busy.”

“Doing what? Haunting the bar? I didn’t realize that passed for an occupation these days.” Emet-Selch looks out at the various guests. “What do you think of him?” He asks, pointing at a brooding looking hume with brilliant blue hair. “You’re a matching set, I’ll say. Him with his sword, you with your axe.”

Ardbert groans but he looks anyway. He thinks Emet-Selch is wrong, though. The other man looks angry, but Ardbert just feels sad.

“I hear,” Emet-Selch continues, “that he’s been investigating stories about the princess of Voeburt.”

Ardbert’s eyes go wide and he turns to Emet-Selch, his heart racing, knowing full well what story that must be, especially if Emet-Selch is telling it to him. He shouldn’t rise to his bait, he knows, and yet he cannot help it.

“Ah there it is,” Emet-Selch says happily, “that light in your eyes again! I was almost afraid you’d gone and lost it. But this is much better. Should I welcome you back?”

Ardbert scowls, but it’s with an annoyance that almost makes him feel alive, back to their usual banter. He wonders if he will keep letting Emet-Selch break him only to mend him again.

\---

“Bedroom, now.” Emet-Selch demands. Ardbert’s expression betrays how surprising it is. But Emet-Selch pays it no mind, disappearing in the next moment.

Ardbert thinks maybe he will just stay here. He has taken to spending time with the amaro. When he’s not haunting the bar, of course. But it seems that he always comes when Emet-Selch calls, now, and whatever adventure or small distraction he offers, Ardbert has come to find, will likely be worth it.

Well, usually, anyroad.

So to the bedroom he goes. The Warrior of Light’s bedroom, not his, although he and Emet-Selch have spent enough time here together at this point that it feels like his own. The Warrior of Light sleeps wherever they happen to be adventuring more often than not.

“Do you hate amaro or something?” Ardbert asks as he appears, although he doesn’t see Emet-Selch at first so his eyes narrow, searching for a moment. He gasps when he sees it—Emet-Selch’s body, collapsed on the ground. For a moment, he forgets to remember that he’s an Ascian and he’s basically indestructible. For a moment, he thinks only that he has lost a friend. He doesn’t know when he started considering Emet-Selch that.

“Oh dear, you really do have feelings towards me,” Emet-Selch’s voice comes from behind him suddenly, and Ardbert whirls around to find a robbed figure. His heart sinks in his chest almost instantly. It’s such a clear reminder of what Emet-Selch is. One that he wishes he could do without.

“Don’t look at me so,” Emet-Selch says when he notices Ardbert’s discomfort. “I have been this way all along. Is a change of clothes all that stands between friend and enemy with you now? Pray that you should never see my true form.”

Ardbert doesn’t know what that means. He just assumed the robe-situation was their true form, with the glowing sigil their faces. But he really only knew what he needed to know about Ascians: how they fought; how to kill them.

“Well, I see that I’ve stunned you entirely speechless already, and prematurely too,” Emet-Selch continues, closing the distance between them and dropping his hood. Underneath it, his face is the same as the one on the body on the floor. “You see, I didn’t leave my body there for dramatics! It’s not like I’m testing you to see if you actually care,” Ardbert gets the sense that was indeed part of it, “I’ve left it for the moment. I realized, instead of trying to get you to meet on my plane—an entirely difficult thing to do without a proper vessel, I’ll note, that’s really the key to it, having a body to inhabit—the far better thing to do would be to meet you on _yours_.”

Those are a lot of words Ardbert doesn’t understand, until a few that he does. He reaches forward and grabs a fistful of Emet-Selch’s stupid, Ascian robes. The fabric is strong and thick and the metal that adorns it cuts into his fingers.

“I…” Ardbert starts, reaching out with his other hand and grabbing Emet-Selch’s shoulder. It is the first time he’s touched another being—really touched them, not just the way their souls had touched before, but physically—in a hundred years.

“Now there’s the reaction I was looking for!” Emet-Selch says, beaming proudly. He’s still while he lets Ardbert test out this newfound ability. Ardbert doesn’t know how he’ll ever stop touching him now that he’s started.

\---

It feels like an eternity. Stupidly, he clings tight and presses his face into Emet-Selch’s chest, breathing him in and feeling his body solid against him. Tears run from his eyes not in sadness but in _joy_ , so elated to finally touch something after all of this time.

Not once does Emet-Selch touch him. Later, Ardbert won’t be sure what to make of that. Was he denying him the return? Or was he denying himself? But in the moment, he can think only of how incredible it is to finally have this again.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, only that eventually, when he looks up, night has fallen.

“There, there,” Emet-Selch finally says when Ardbert pulls away and pushes the last of his tears from his face. “Was it really so bad? I thought I did a nice job, bringing myself to your level. Perhaps I got the calculations wrong…”

“Don’t be daft,” Ardbert responds, punching on his shoulder like he would a friend. It connects, gods be good. How strange it is to feel something solid under his hand. “I’m not crying because I’m sad.”

“Well, that’s a good deal better than assuring me you aren’t crying at all,” Emet-Selch laughs. He watches him curiously for a moment, the way he cries, the way he stands. Strange, though, for all Emet-Selch looks at him, Ardbert feels like he’s seeing something else entirely.

“Right, well, uh,” Ardbert scratches the back of his neck, a little embarrassed, “sorry for messing up your robes.”

Emet-Selch’s curiosity turns to amusement as he watches Ardbert, “Oh, this embarrassment is new!” he says, pointing out what didn’t need to be pointed out, “you look almost boyish. It’s very cute! If only I could frame it, I would pay the price of a thousand robes for it.”

“Hey!” Ardbert pouts, stamping his foot a little. He figures it’s not really helping, but under the thin layer of annoyance is a _giddiness_ he hasn’t felt in a long time. Having Emet-Selch tease him so is a small price to pay for the boon he has granted him.

For a moment, it looks like Emet-Selch intends to reach out and touch him, his hand rising, long fingers moving out towards his face, but then he drops it and shakes his head, “Well, I’d best pick up that body off the floor lest someone come in and find it. It would be such a bother if they thought it dead and buried it.”

A morbid joke, but Ardbert laughs anyway. “Well, we couldn’t have that.”

\---

“Was it the mystel, then?” Emet-Selch asks, but he’s preoccupied with the bottle of wine on the table between them, hunched over and concentrating on it, touching the side of it now and again and a small glow of dark magic surrounds it but nothing happens. He hasn’t said what he’s doing with it, and Ardbert hasn’t asked. For all he knows, Emet-Selch is turning wine into arsenic. It seems like the kind of “miracle” he’d perform.

“No,” Ardbert responds shaking his head, “Renda-Rae’s far too feisty a spirit for me. She’s got better things to do than wait around for a moping warrior to get his shit together.”

Emet-Selch laughs at Ardbert’s description of himself but doesn’t look up. “Hm, well that just leaves...wait, it’s not the healer, is it?”

Ardbert laughs at the suggestion—and the concern on Emet-Selch’s face. “No, not her.”

“Hm,” Emet-Selch considers again, thinking for a moment through what he knows about Ardbert. “The other _tank?”_ He asks all at once, and when Ardbert’s face colors deep enough that it answers all on its own, the wine bottle disappears. “No! Surely that man is too big even for you,” Emet-Selch says, looking up at Ardbert’s face completely abandoning what was going on with the wine bottle. “A gladjent?”

“Well,” Ardbert looks down at the fruit bowl instead of Emet-Selch, his chest warm with the memory, “like all good stories it started with a very drunken celebration after a good fight.”

“Continue,” Emet-Selch says, leaning back to watch him. When he does, the bottle reappears. But it doesn’t appear in the same, solid way it had been, before. The bottle is glowing, translucent. It looks like him.

Ardbert reaches out and his fingers take it, “Wait—” He starts, looking down at it incredulously, “Did you do this for _me_?”

“I’m tired of drinking alone,” Emet-Selch says with a shrug, producing a wine glass of his own with a snap. “You’ll have to drink out of the bottle, I’m afraid, since you appear to be short on glasses.” he sips from his own and peers over it, waiting for Ardbert to do the same.

Ardbert uncorks the bottle and _drinks_ , savoring each drop. It doesn’t taste like arsenic, at least. It tastes like the finest wine he’s ever had in his life. Emet-Selch watches him intently, his eyes focused on every movement, the bend of his arm, the thrill in his eyes, the way his throat works. Emet-Selch watches him like he’s hungry but Ardbert finds he doesn’t mind. He slams the bottle heartily down on the table. He doesn’t pretend to have good manners around Emet-Selch, he is always simply himself. “Huzzah!” He cries, and Emet-Selch laughs happily.

“So, you were saying,” he prods, pushing Ardbert back to the story.

“Oh, right!” Ardbert replies, his belly and spirits warmed now. “We’d just killed Renda-Rae’s latest hunt, this giant, towering beast, barely escaping with our lives. But we were so worked up, our blood pumping something fierce. Branden, he was so happy, too. Put his arms right around me and kissed my head, telling me how good I’d been at his side. How wonderful it was that we lived to fight another day.” Ardbert smiles, thinking about it. “Time seemed to stop, you know? Like there was nothing but me and him. Maybe just ‘cause I was drinking. I climbed in his lap and our friends cheered. Actually, I think the whole bloody bar cheered, and I kissed him right on the lips in front of the gods and everyone. He picked me up like he was picking up a cat, like it weren’t nothing, and he carried me up to a room above the bar.”

Emet-Selch drinks his wine idly, trying to seem like it isn’t affected at all. But Ardbert has spent enough time with him, he can see it in his eyes. Pupils dilated, he listens with hunger and desire. And that alone is enough to make Ardbert continue. He’s never told anyone else about this, he’s not in the habit of discussing his sex life, and yet, he wants to make Emet-Selch _feel_ something.

“I swear he had to bathe me in oil to get it in. Even his fingers were bigger than anything I’d had. But it was so good, he was so strong, and after the fight we were so riled up. Our bodies burned for one another that night. We went at it several times, until I was too tired to so much as move, sweaty and covered in spend.” Ardbert is blushing something fierce now, but he’s proud to see that color lights up even Emet-Selch’s cheeks as he listens. Or is it just the alcohol? “After that...well, once was never going to be enough. We were always finding dark corners to sneak off into, even for a quick touch. Gods, he was so embarrassed by it. He was a proper knight, you know, not like me. I debauched him thoroughly, making him come to my level like that. Wanting things he’d never wanted before. But after all the shit he’d been through, he deserved all of it and more. I’d happily have given him my body every night if he wanted it.”

Emet-Selch says nothing for a moment, finishing up his glass and setting it aside. “What must it have felt like, then, when you ran your axe through him? A tragedy indeed.”

Ardbert stands, but the bench doesn’t clatter to the ground. There’s no noise to go along with the frustrated way that he jumps up so he grabs the bottle and tries to shatter it, but it too only runs through the table. He shouts with frustration “Get out!” And moves to shove Emet-Selch away. Of course, he doesn’t touch him. But with a laugh that lingers in the dark recesses of the room, Emet-Selch leaves him all the same.

\---

In his melancholy and rage, Ardbert drinks to drown himself. He drinks until the bottle is empty and then curses it for lacking depth. But ghostly alcohol, it seems, is as potent as the real thing, and Ardbert ends up in a heap on the floor.

He is aware, sometime later, when strong hands pick up him and place him on the bed. He keeps his eyes closed, feigning sleep, even as the Ascian, clothed in full robes once again, places his head on his lap.

Emet-Selch strokes his head with a gentleness he would never have assumed he knew. His long, elegant fingers caress him like he’s precious. He does not have to open his eyes to guess at the expression on Emet-Selch’s face. And although he has never quite seen it in the time they have spent together, he has no doubt that it is reverence.

“Oh, my beautiful Warrior of Light,” Emet-Selch says, a melancholy fondness to it, “I do hope you will forgive me for torturing you so. I find that I cannot help myself, when it comes to you.”

And somewhere in the haunting sadness of his tone, Ardbert forgets to be afraid.


	3. Chapter 3

Where was the Warrior of Light, now? Who could say, really. Rumor was they’d been spotted everywhere in Norvrandt. Ardbert wishes he could have back that tireless energy, like he’d had when he was a youth, in the time before the flood.

But the truth is, he is starting to dread their return. Will they finally figure out how to distinguish the guilt he feels about the flood from the guilt he feels about his new choice in companion? He doubts they will be happy to know that this is how he spends his free time.

And yet, there’s something else, something darker he is afraid to acknowledge. There is a resentment that pools deep within him. But he’s not sure what he resents more: the fact the Warrior of Light is accomplishing so much with so little loss, or the fact that he could not do the same.

\---

“Where shall we go today?” Emet-Selch asks for once, instead of telling. He meets him in the Warrior of Light’s room, looking at Ardbert instead of idly taking stock of its contents.

“You’re asking me?” Ardbert replies, standing up to greet him. He’s not sure what to say. He’d been perfectly content to just follow Emet-Selch around. Predictable, Emet-Selch had called him, maybe he was right. “What if I say Il Mheg? You hate the Fae.”

“Il Mheg it is!” Emet-Selch responds amicably, opening a portal for himself. “Lyhe Ghiah, then?”

“Lydha Lran.” He’s testing his luck, he knows, but he’s not quite sure what’s gotten Emet-Selch so uncharacteristically agreeable today.

Although Emet-Selch rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically, he nevertheless agrees, “Fine, Lydha Lran,” and doesn’t complain further. He steps into his portal and Ardbert manifests himself to Lydha Lran.

“Well, here we are,” Emet-Selch says with the briefest bit of annoyance as he watches a pixie fly up to him.

“Already talking to yourself and you haven’t been here for a but a minute!” The pixie cries out, putting their hands over their mouth. “I knew that mortals were weak, but this has got to be a new record.”

Ardbert bursts out laughing as Emet-Selch waves the pixie off.

“I can see through your magicks just fine, Pixie,” he says, and Ardbert is sure it is meant to come off sounding much cooler. But it sort of misses the mark. Perhaps because at this point other pixies have come to join the first, flying about him, touching his strange clothing without so much as asking. One pulls at the medal in the front, another at the epaulettes.

“Well if you can already see us, then you and your imaginary friend _must_ stay and play!” One says, and the others burst into a chorus of agreement.

“It sounds like you don’t have much of a choice at this point,” Ardbert says, barely suppressing his laughter.

Emet-Selch shoots him a look that could kill, but shrugs. “Very well. But my _imaginary_ friend and I don’t have all day. So play we shall, but only a few games.”

The voices of the pixies ring out in joy, each one raising their hand to give the string of quests that keeps them busy well into the night.

\---

“You called me your friend,” Ardbert says later, when they are seated on the edge of the mountain at Lhye Ghiah, looking over the Longmirror lake and the dazzling glow of the pixie’s magic beyond, visible even though night has fallen. Ardbert’s expression when he looks over is fond, but also teasing, like Emet-Selch has admitted to something embarrassing.

Emet-Selch doesn’t meet his gaze. “You were,” he says, his tone distracted and far off. Then he seems to catch himself because understanding sparks in his eyes all at once and he turns to Ardbert, his smile just a touch apologetic for the way he seemingly misspoke, “pardon me. You _are_ , aren’t you?”

Ardbert doesn’t respond. There are all these pieces of something, here. Moments Emet-Selch shows him something he doesn’t quite understand. But how is he supposed to put together the pieces when he can’t even remember what they looked like? He’d said something about a title before, hadn’t he? He doesn’t remember the details, just the same melancholy.

“What do you mean, I was?” Ardbert asks. “Did you have another body before the flood? I thought you were busy being an emperor, living a life…”

For a moment, Emet-Selch looks almost hopeful, but Ardbert knows instantly he’s asked the wrong followup question because Emet-Selch’s expression changes and he looks at Ardbert like he’s just failed a basic arithmetic problem. But Ardbert knows better than to ask him again. He’ll lose him if he does. So he just looks away. He’ll have to remember these things, learn to ask the right questions. It gives him something to focus on. A quest, for the first time in a long time.

Finally, Ardbert says quietly, “yeah, I guess we’re friends.”

Emet-Selch’s eyes light up and he smiles. “I haven’t had a friend in an awfully long time,” he says.

“Yeah?” Ardbert asks, “well, you’re in luck. I haven’t either.”

\---

The Warrior of Light returns triumphant from Ahm Araeng. They are in need of rest, but stay up to tell Ardbert of their adventures. There is something about them that doesn’t seem quite right, but they assure him it’s just because they need the sleep. Only one Lightwarden remains, now. Soon, they will have returned the night sky to the whole of Norvrandt.

After they finally fall asleep, Ardbert wonders what Emet-Selch has planned for them. He realizes, in all of the time he has spent with him he has learned almost nothing of his plans. All that he knows is of the man himself.

He’s not sure he wants to know, any longer. He curses himself for the thought, that he should be so careless. But then he thinks that it wouldn’t matter if he knew. The Warrior of Light never needed his help in the first place. Without him, this world wouldn’t even be in this mess.

So what did it matter if he knew or not? If he were friends with the man or not?

As depressing as the thought is, it is also freeing.

\---

“You’re not going to Khlousia with them?” Emet-Selch asks like he thought it was a given that Ardbert would go. But Ardbert just shakes his head.

“They don’t need me there,” he says, “I’ll just get in the way.”

Emet-Selch watches him curiously for a moment. “Not even for the last, grand adventure? Where they slay the Lightwarden and return peace to the land?” Everything about the way he says it makes it sound like he doesn’t think that will be the case, but that he is reciting the plan the way it is supposed to work. That doesn’t surprise Ardbert in the slightest.

“It’s fine,” Ardbert says again, trying to muster more finality to it. “You know how it is. I’m sure they’ll have plenty to take care of before they even get to the Warden. I’ll show for the big finale.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Emet-Selch responds, “perhaps it would be best to visit them sometime along the journey.”

A better man would ask what Emet-Selch intends to do, he knows. A better man would’ve tried, even if it was futile, to do everything in his power to stop him.

But Ardbert, it turns out, isn’t a better man.

\---

From the highest point of the Laxan Loft, Ardbert feels like he could get lost in the night sky. As uncertain as he is about so much these days, he is certain of one thing: the Warrior of Light has to power to fix the First. The sky was a testament to that.

But those thoughts feel so big and so grand. How strange, not to have anxiety about the state of the world, to be at peace knowing it is in another’s hands, but instead be completely preoccupied with something else entirely, something simple and personal.

He cannot stop thinking about how Emet-Selch refused to touch him in return that day, but then picked him up and touched him so gently later. He wants to ask, but like most things he wants to ask Emet-Selch, he knows he has to time it correctly.

Of course, that mostly means he never finds the time. But tonight there is no idle banter, no stories of lives lived long ago. Tonight they are just observing the night sky. Enjoying each other’s company, perhaps, since they’ve both admitted to being friends.

“Hey,” Ardbert says, standing and walking over to Emet-Selch. His nerves feel on edge, ready to finally ask but afraid to. But maybe the fear comes from something else. The Warrior of Light was going to save the world, weren’t they? But were they going to save Emet-Selch with it?

Not that he needs saving, Ardbert figures. But he has no doubt that he’ll intervene somehow. He didn’t waste all this time on the First simply to observe. The Ascians were never just silent observers. But the Warrior of Light didn’t have to kill everyone they fought, surely. And yet, at the same time, he knows exactly what he would’ve done, facing an Ascian.

“‘Hey’?” Emet-Selch repeats quizzically. It sounds strange to hear him say it. “I assume you mean this not as a greeting but in order to get my attention. You have it. What is it?”

“I want…” Ardbert looks down at his feet, kicking one out a little lamely, and then back up to Emet-Selch’s face, “I want to touch you again.”

Emet-Selch’s face makes an expression Ardbert hasn’t seen before. He doesn’t know what to make of it. He looks pained. But he also looks a little like he had when Ardbert had told him about Branden.

Ardbert’s heart sinks a little. “Should I not have asked?”

“No,” Emet-Selch replies, trying to school his expression back into that amused smile he always seemed to wear around him. “No, not at all. One moment.”

Dark magic envelops his body and it falls, but Emet-Selch remains in his Ascian robes, hovering just above it. He lands on the ground and moves closer to Ardbert, waiting. Ardbert refuses to deny himself over pretense after all of this time. He pulls Emet-Selch into a hug, which clearly surprises him. He pulls him close and rests his forehead on his shoulder and closes his eyes to pretend that he’s anything but an Ascian, that their situation is anything but what it is.

Emet-Selch, still, does not touch him.

Ardbert curls his fingers into his robes and holds him, like he might be able to keep him here instead of having Emet-Selch run off every time a conversation goes a way he doesn’t like. And then he pulls back just enough to look him in the eye.

“What’s your name?” He asks, bold. That was what Emet-Selch had been on about that day. Names and titles. “You said I always use your title.”

“Pass,” says Emet-Selch, looking down at him, his eyes cold. “Do I not answer when you call me by it? Have I not appeared, every time you have had need of me?”

Ardbert digs his fingers into the fabric, willing him to stay. “We were friends,” he continues, “I knew it then, didn’t I?”

Emet-Selch looks away from him, off into the distance. He swallows thickly but when he speaks his tone is cold. “If you did, you’ve clearly forgotten. So what difference does it make?”

“Why won’t you touch me?” Ardbert asks, unwilling to let it go. “Why won’t you touch me when I touch you?”

“I’ve no need to,” Emet-Selch responds. “I can touch others whenever I want, remember? This is not my only option, the way it is for you.”

“Maybe not, but I saw the way you looked at me when I told you about Branden,” maybe he shouldn’t press it. He can feel Emet-Selch shifting uncomfortably in his arms.

But for all his body might give hints, his voice betrays nothing, “As would anyone, being told so explicit a tale.”

“Stop making excuses!” Ardbert cries out, all emotion where Emet-Selch is none, meeting his passivity with growing passion.

And then, quite impulsively, Ardbert surges forward and places a demanding kiss to Emet-Selch’s lips, daring him to deny even that.

It escalates very quickly. Surprise first, and then desperation, fingers rushing to undo buckles and fastenings. Ghost clothes, as it turns out, can be shed just as well.

Emet-Selch pushes Ardbert down onto the ground, but the benefit of being a ghost is that it doesn’t feel too hard under his back. He looks up at Emet-Selch expectantly, licking his lips in anticipation.

He doesn’t have to wait long. Emet-Selch sinks down on his knees, straddling Ardbert’s hips. He snaps his fingers and a bottle of appears, which he uncorks. He covers his fingers with its contents. Ardbert can’t help the way his hips shift, the way his body already pulses in want for the feeling of Emet-Selch’s fingers inside of him. But the feeling doesn’t come.

Instead, Emet-Selch presses those long, beautiful fingers into himself. He tries to feign that it does nothing for him, but Ardbert has spent enough time with him now that he can see it all the same. The way his lips part just slightly, his pupils dilating. Against the star-filled night sky, fingering himself not for pleasure but utility, Emet-Selch looks exquisite.

Ardbert’s mouth feels dry. He wants to touch him but he’s enraptured by the way he looks. As if touching him might break the spell entirely. So he just watches, a thrall to this beautiful man who has deigned to spend so much time with him and him alone.

Emet-Selch hands the bottle to Ardbert expectantly, his hand lingering. He doesn’t have to tell him what he wants, Ardbert uncorks it and pours the contents into his hand. A good move, because Emet-Selch brings the oil down Ardbert’s cock, wrapping his hand around it and stroking him gently while he continues touching himself, all perfect concentration and unchanging resolve.

Not that Ardbert needs much help, at this point. His cock had already stirred watching him, and maybe he’d be embarrassed if it hadn’t been so long since he last did this. But embarrassment has no place here, not when it means he’s closer to getting what he wants. What they both want.

When Emet-Selch takes Ardbert’s cock inside of himself, it feels like time stops. And there is only them, and there is only this, and all of the problems the First faced were distant and unimportant. Emet-Selch seats himself on it like a man upon a throne.

“Is this what you wanted?” Emet-Selch asks, though his words are articulated by shallow breathing, and Ardbert knows that, too, signals that he is enjoying himself.

But Ardbert doesn’t have time to think about holding himself back. His response is breathless, his hands shaking as they come up to rest on Emet-Selch’s thighs, “yes.”

Emet-Selch leans forward and presses a demanding kiss to Ardbert’s lips. Ardbert lets him in immediately—how could he not? When he opens his mouth, Emet-Selch shoves his tongue in, taking from him all that he can now, and demanding more still. When he moves his hips he barely pulls himself off of Ardbert at all, preferring to remain close for all it also means that each stroke stretches himself out just a little more given his position.

Ardbert likes the idea of it, but he likes the feeling even more. He moans loud, hands going desperately from Emet-Selch’s thighs to his shoulders, then one to his head, twining his fingers in his hair there and holding on for dear life. Funny, he thinks, that he should be the one inside of Emet-Selch but still feel that same, overwhelmed feeling like he is the one being taken, that he should need an anchor to keep him afloat.

“Please,” Ardbert begs, though he doesn’t know what for. Emet-Selch’s breathless laugh of amusement doesn’t annoy him, though, it only feels right, it only feels like the latest of their shared lexicon, something he has come to understand quite well.

They move their hips together, then, although Emet-Selch keeps them slow. It is intimate, but the desperation simmers underneath the surface. As they move, it is like Emet-Selch has finally relented, and finally allowed himself to have all that he wanted before, because his hands move to touch Ardbert everywhere, and when he pulls away from the kiss it is only to explore with his mouth. He presses kisses to Ardbert’s ear, his jaw, his neck. He bites at his collarbone. He indulges in his flesh, clearly enjoying himself.

Ardbert, too, is enjoying himself. And when he shoots off inside of him, it’s like a rocket. He cries out, loud and unabashed—for who can hear them? They exist in a world only of their own, in a place that is only theirs. He reaches over to try and help Emet-Selch finish, but it seems Emet-Selch hardly needs it. He barely has time to wrap his hand around him before Emet-Selch loses it, his face a perfect picture of bliss. Ardbert watches him, relishing it. He could die happily, knowing that he made this man experience something that makes him look like _that_.

In the afterwards, he lays next to Emet-Selch and presses his face against his chest. They do not have to fear for the chill of the night air on their bodies. They do not have to want for water or for sustenance. For a moment, they feel like two absolutely perfect beings, basking in the awe of creation as the night sky glitters above.


	4. Chapter 4

Ardbert is far from a perfect being. In the days that follow, he remembers what it was like to have time pass so slowly. Days drawn out, moments waiting in absolute agony. It makes him feel alive, but not in a way he appreciates. He knows it is not the same for Emet-Selch. That the days must feel like minutes in the vastness of his experience. If only they could do the same for him.

He wonders not for the last time what Emet-Selch is planning. What he means for the Warrior of Light, and what he means for him.

And above all, one thought stands out stark and bright: will he get to say goodbye?

\---

“Why are you so fascinated with them?” Emet-Selch asks, watching Ardbert as he perfects the art of ghost-petting amaro. His hand just above their feathers, lingering so it does not go through but close enough that at least looks right even if it can’t feel right.

Ardbert just smiles, immune to the complaint in Emet-Selch’s tone. “How can you not be? They’re so gentle, and yet so strong. And fiercely intelligent. Having an amaro to travel with is as good as having another party member.”

The amaro, however, seem rather keen on avoiding Emet-Selch. So even if he wanted to pet one, he’d have considerable trouble doing so. Ardbert likes seeing him in situations like this, he realizes. Just as he had at Il Mheg. The dramatic way he pouts, like it’s the greatest inconvenience in the world not to be liked on his terms. Ardbert knows well underneath the surface that isn’t it at all, and it’s endearing.

“Endearing” is not a term he would have every imagined he’d use with an Ascian. But most of his perceptions about Ascians are slowly changing, now.

Ardbert has always fallen hard, when he has fallen for others. Because he feels everything so deeply and so openly. He is fierce passion and unabashed emotion.

He is trying to reign himself in around Emet-Selch, though. One night of enjoying each other’s flesh does not two lovers make. Nor, says the rational part of his brain, should it. The rational part of his brain screams about how terribly bad of an idea all of this is. But he has gotten quite good at drowning it out.

He has, unfortunately, not gotten much better and keeping his heart off his sleeve. He must be looking at Emet-Selch with some goofy expression on his face because Emet-Selch catches it and his eyes glitter in amusement.

“Are you daydreaming, Warrior of Light?” He asks, a subtle note of pleasure to his tone. Ardbert likes that, too. Gods help him, he likes of all it.

“No,” Ardbert responds, looking at the amaro he’s been pretending to pet. It shakes its feathers like something really did touch it, but he figures that’s just a stray bug flying around. “Just thinking.”

“Not very descriptive today, are we?” Emet-Selch asks. But Ardbert knows there’s no way that Emet-Selch misses how he’s been lately. Like a schoolboy, having a crush after a first kiss.

Ardbert doesn’t expect Emet-Selch to return it, of course. He’s content to just get to feel something again.

“What does the Warrior of Light think of when he daydreams, I wonder,” Emet-Selch asks, walking over. It scares the amaro away, leaving only Ardbert and Emet-Selch in this part of the pasture.

“I don’t usually daydream,” Ardbert responds, “I’m not doing it right now, either. I’m just thinking about the amaro.” And spending time with Emet-Selch, of course, but he doesn’t say that aloud.

“What a curious nonanswer,” Emet-Selch responds, but he doesn’t ask again. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with the amaro, though, they don’t seem to care for me at all.” A shrug, like, oh no, what can you do?

“What do Ascians dream about?” Ardbert asks, looking over at him and placing his hands on his hips. An open gesture. Waiting and welcome to hear the answer.

“Oh, I never dream,” Emet-Selch says, with that melancholy tone of his that he uses when he speaks of the past, “I only ever have nightmares.”

Concern wells up inside of him, but he is too afraid to ask what sorts of terrible nightmares an Ascian mind might conjure. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says instead, lamely, “must be awful.”

“It’s quite alright,” Emet-Selch responds, not quite looking at Ardbert any longer, “after all these years, I wouldn’t know what to do without them.”

\---

Back at the bar, those he had overheard talking about particularly powerful sin eaters are gone. He cannot help but wonder if they will kill their prey. Or if they, themselves, have already been killed.

\---

“Well, I am compelled to report that our mutual friend has decided to quit being a hero and become a dwarf instead.” Emet-Selch announces quite suddenly, appearing behind Ardbert. He sounds annoyed. He looks annoyed, too, but Ardbert couldn’t really say why. He always assumed Emet-Selch wanted the Warrior of Light to fail. Skipping out on their main quest to forever become a dwarf would sort of be to the same end.

Which is not to say that he believes Emet-Selch, of course. He knows he’s just complaining. It’s just the why that intrigues him. But Emet-Selch doesn’t continue.

Instead, “Come,” he says, snapping his fingers and opening up a portal, “the usual spot.”

Several seconds later, safely in Lakeland, Emet-Selch lays his hand in the air just above Ardbert’s shoulder, pretending he’s touching him and points. “Look, there.”

Ardbert looks. Far off in the distance, specs of white move around what appears to be machinery. And then, from there a person clad in dwarven armor, riding a porxie, flies off towards Weathering.

“No…” Ardbert starts, watching them in shock.

“Oh, yes, no less than the _esteemed_ hero we so know and love,” Emet-Selch says with a sigh, “it was all downhill after they were gifted the armor. I fear we may never see them again.” He brings an arm in front of him, moving it down as his hand closes into a fist, like he’s paying respects. Ardbert can’t help but laugh.

“You know how they are, always busy. I’m sure there’s a good reason for this, too. Some scheme to help all of Lakeland, maybe all of Norvrandt.”

“My, my, it seems hope springs eternal with you today.” Emet-Selch says dryly, seemingly no more amused by Ardbert’s belief than by the Warrior of Light’s antics. But Ardbert knows better. There’s still a hint of fondness, lurking under there. And Emet-Selch always seemed inclined to spark that same hope back into him after he’d said something to steal it away. The thought shouldn’t be so comforting, he knows, but it is anyway.

“They’re only delaying the inevitable,” Emet-Selch continues with a sigh, but here, too, there is no joy as it says it. Ardbert cannot help but wonder if Emet-Selch is starting to doubt his own plans. If he’s no longer sure he wants to stand against them. A dangerous thought, and his heart aches with the weight of hope that it might be the case. “One Lightwarden left, and here they are, flying about on a magic pig.”

“It’s not a pig, it’s a porxie,” Ardbert corrects, and in that moment, the Warrior of Light flies by again, back from Weathering and towards the curious dwarf settlement they could see far afield. But for all Emet-Selch thought it a strange sight, Ardbert knows the far stranger one is the two of them, surveying Lakeland together, ignoring the distant warning bells of the inevitability of all things.

\---

“Do you have to sleep?” Ardbert asks, seated at a table in the bar next to Emet-Selch, who is presently balancing empty glasses he has collected from nearby tables to create something of a house of cards. “Something” because he’s going about it in entirely the wrong order, the base made of shot glasses, and the tops from tumblers, but he’s using his magic to keep them balance. Ardbert imagines this is rather a precarious situation. If he lost his concentration, would they all go falling to the ground and shatter? Then again, he can’t imagine something like this takes much concentration for an Ascian.

“No,” he says, and then turns to a barmaid who happens to be walking by, “excuse me, may I have those?” Without waiting for an answer he pulls the empty tankards off her tray, “thank you very much!” He says as she wanders off, surprised and annoyed. He doesn’t seem to mind, and the tankards go to the making of something else. He’s not just making a house of cards, Ardbert realizes, he’s setting up an entire glass city. “Not on our own at any rate. But mortal flesh can be demanding. Sometimes it must needs rest.” 

“So that body, then, does it have to sleep?” Ardbert asks, leaning down so he can get a new perspective on the city now occupying their table. Emet-Selch stands and fetches a few more glasses from a party that stumbles off into the night before returning.

“No, this is a clone,” he says, like he’s telling him the sky is blue or that the bar serves mead. He stacks several of the tankards on one another, creating a taller building than the rest and then turns his attention to some wine glasses, his latest procurement. “But the body it is based on did. I lived an entire mortal’s life in that one.”

“As the emperor,” Ardbert says, mostly to prove that he really does listen when Emet-Selch talks to him.

“Just so,” Emet-Selch nods. “Do you have to sleep?” He asks in return.

“Not really,” Ardbert replies, although he says it like he’s unsure, “sometimes I feel like...I’m not all here, you know? Maybe my consciousness takes a nap.”

“Perhaps,” Emet-Selch’s distracted reply comes as he starts a new set of glasses out as a foundation. “You were dormant for almost a hundred years, weren’t you?”

“Dormant?” Ardbert repeats, brow furrowing, “I mean, I didn’t remember much, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Think of it like a very long nap,” Emet-Selch shrugs. “Ah, there we go,” he mutters under his breath as he finds another combination he seems to like. He leans back and surveys it. “I think it’s rather attractive, don’t you?”

Ardbert sits up and leans back too, “It’s kinda weird, innit? This one’s all small on the bottom, and this one’s got too many tankards.”

Emet-Selch’s eyes narrow at the lack of immediate praise, “Do not blame me because your imagination is lacking. I think the tankards are quite nice.”

“Are these doors for dwarves?” Ardbert asks, pointing at the shot glasses. “If so, they’re going to have an awfully hard time with the tankards. It’s not very welcoming, you know?”

“They’ll just have to grow.” Emet-Selch says, shrugging, “or become smaller, if they want to use the shot glasses. What’s so wrong with that?”

“‘What’s so wrong with that?’ He says, like I could just turn myself into a dwarf if I thought hard enough about it,” Ardbert laughs, “I think even a gladjent would struggle with the tankards. Proportionally speaking.”

“You’re thinking far too literally,” Emet-Selch says, waving his hand, “think of it like an allegory.”

“An allegory tankard?” Ardbert asks, peering into the tankard on the top of the stack. “Is the lesson that it’s quite empty?”

There’s a very marked shift, when he asks. Emet-Selch goes from joking with him, putting up his usual fuss, pointing out the glasses and enjoying himself. But at the word  _empty_ , Ardbert swears he can feel him growing sad. Distant. The glasses shake like they might all tumble.

“Yes, ‘quite empty,’” He repeats, looking at the glasses but looking past them, “it’s been that way for some time.”

“Hey, whoa, it’s fine,” Ardbert says, jumping up. He can’t catch the glasses with his hands if they fall, and they—well, Emet-Selch—is seriously going to get himself banned from the bar if he breaks all of their glassware. Before, he would have found that absolutely hilarious, but now he finds himself moving to Emet-Selch’s side, crouching down next to him, hand hovering above his thigh. “it’s a great city. Love the tankards. Shot glasses, too, gives it a real character, you know?”

Emet-Selch isn’t listening. But he does snap his fingers, and all of the  glasses and cups rearrange themselves, lining up and stacking in one another neatly, easy to be picked up by the staff if they were so inclined. In fact, as Ardbert looks at them, he realizes they’re not only neatly stacked but also now entirely clean,  vestiges of their former beverages gone without a trace .

“It was a nice city,” Ardbert tries again, lamely.

“Yes,” Emet-Selch agrees, “it was.”

\---

“Is that—a _talos_?” Ardbert exclaims, hands flying over his mouth as he stares at it. Emet-Selch has dragged him to Kholusia, tired of his insistence that he isn’t needed out here. 

“Impressive, isn’t it? It’s almost like you mortals actually are capable of something,” Emet-Selch replies, although Ardbert notices it doesn’t sound like he actually thinks it’s the case. Where normally he’d expect some kind of hope, some kind of marked change that matched the words, Emet-Selch’s expression stays as ever, as if he really isn’t moved by the giant talos as it holds its hand out to the mountain in the sky. “They will climb it and slay the Warden in due course,” he says, “assuming they aren’t side tracked.”

Of course, considering that the Warrior of Light doesn’t even seem like they’re anywhere on the First at the moment, it won’t be instantaneous. Ardbert can’t help but feel a pang of envy, that the Warrior of Light can move between the Source and the First on a whim, that they can see all their friends at once without so much as a second thought.

“Hm, something seems off about you,” Emet-Selch says, looking over at him, “I thought you’d be happier. The cumulative efforts of the whole star, come together for this monumentous occasion! Does it not stir your heart, Warrior of Light? Does it not make you bask in the possibilities that await your fellow man? I, for one, expected tears. Not whatever this,” he gestures to Ardbert, motioning up and down at him, “is. Why do you sulk about so?”

“I’m not sulking,” Ardbert says, shaking his head, “I’m just thinking.”

“And what, pray tell, are you thinking about?” Emet-Selch follows, persistent in his chase to learn what ill mood has struck Ardbert now. 

“I don’t know,” Ardbert sighs, but given that Emet-Selch seems truly curious he decides not to leave him without an answer, “I guess, how ironic fate is. How cruel.”

Emet-Selch is quiet for a moment, giving Ardbert’s words the room to settle between them. And then, “You wish it were you.”

“Yeah,” Ardbert nods, “it’s a shitty wish to have.”

“I don’t think so,” Emet-Selch replies, “don’t we all wish that we’d lived the better of our fated futures?”

Ardbert hums a response, thinking about it. Emet-Selch’s words make him wonder what it would’ve been like, with a different fate, and a different future. Was there a world, a timeline really, somewhere out there where he’d been a hero? Where he hadn’t had to kill his friends? Where the Flood hadn’t been caused? What would the Ardbert of that story be like?

And at the same time, he cannot help but wonder what future Emet-Selch wished he lived in. He looks over at his friend, watching him carefully. “ What would yours look like?”

“Oh that’s simple,” Emet-Selch says, a strangely cheerful note to his voice although the words that follow are anything but, “my friends would still be alive. And you and yours would not have slaughtered them.”

\--- 

“This is a new one,” Emet-Selch says, stepping up behind him at the watchtower at the Rookery. Ardbert gazing out at the night sky, another high vantage point to make use of. 

“Can still hear the amaro from here,” Ardbert responds by way of explanation. 

“Right, of course, the amaro, how could I forget the amaro?” Emet-Selch shrugs, moving to stand at his side. Ardbert looks back down behind them to the amaro in their pens, but Emet-Selch doesn’t.

“It’ll be over soon,” Ardbert said, but he’s not sure he knows what that really means at this point.

“Mm,” Emet-Selch hums noncommittally, “I suppose it shall.”

“When the light’s all fixed, are you going to go back to the Source? Or will you try and cause a calamity with another shard?” Ardbert asks, turning towards the Ascian. 

“Are those my only options?” Emet-Selch wonders, a slight pout to his lips, “What if I wanted to stay here?”

“Why would you? It’ll be balanced again,” Ardbert replies, in a way that he’s trying to convince himself, too. 

“Give it time,” Emet-Selch says, “men will find a way to ruin the balance again. I simply need to wait. And as you know, I’ve infinite time.’

“Maybe, but I’ve never known you to have infinite patience,” the retort comes easy, and Ardbert wishes it didn’t. 

That draws a laugh from Emet-Selch’s lips. “And yet, I’ve waited a thousand thousand years already. What are a few hundred more?”

“So, you’ll stay? When the night sky is returned to all the land?” Ardbert asks.

“I think,” Emet-Selch looks up at the stars, away from Ardbert, “that when that happens, it will mark the final act.”

“What does that mean?”

Although Emet-Selch draws his gaze away from the night sky, he still does not look at Ardbert, “Will you remember all of this fondly? Or will you look back on it in pain?”

While he speaks, Ardbert feels like he can barely breathe. His chest draws tight, listening to the things Emet-Selch does not say, and fear claws at his throat. For a moment, Ardbert cannot say anything. And then, finally, he musters up the ability, “What good are the memories of a ghost?”

Emet-Selch laughs. He laughs and laughs like Ardbert has told him the funniest joke he’s ever heard. He laughs until tears cloud his normally clear eyes and he wipes them away. Ardbert doesn’t really get it, but he doesn’t need to. All he wishes is that he had the corporeality to throw his arms around his man and hold him until this uneasy anxiety, this constant dread, could leave them both.

\---

And then, the Light returns. Blinding, filling the whole of the world all at once. The Light soaked skies reach every crevice, every corner of Norvrandt. And with it, fear.

\---

Ardbert is cruel to the Warrior of Light. He pours salt in their wounds and asks them what it feels like to be the one at fault. He relishes in the fact he was not the only failure. He lashes out as he, childishly, cannot come to terms with his own feelings in the swirling uneasiness of all that is happening around them. 

But the Warrior of Light soaks up every word, every insult, every blow. And then, for hours, they talk. And Ardbert cannot help but wonder what a different man he would be, if he had haunted this hero instead of allowing himself to be followed by a shadow.

\---

“I warned you, did I not?” It is not the body of the emperor who steps out of the portal and into the bedroom, but the Ascian in dark robes.

Ardbert’s eyes are fixated on the light outside the window, but he spares a moment to look at Emet-Selch before returning. “You did this,” he accuses him.

“You give me too much credit,” Emet-Selch responds, “this is not my doing. It is _their_ fault, and their frail body for not being able to hold enough light. But you know that already, I saw you speak with them.”

“Maybe I do,” Ardbert says. He knows they have gone to find a way to the Tempest, to find Emet-Selch. All of that trouble and he was standing here in their bedroom, in the irony of ironies.

“How could you even think me capable?” Emet-Selch moves closer, standing at his side, his hand on his shoulder. He hates how weak he is to the touch. “I am a devotee of Zodiark, Lord of the Darkness. My magic could not all this Light create.” 

Ardbert doesn’t know whether he believes him, but it sounds good, at least. “Why are you here? I thought you were supposed to be in the Tempest.”

“Oh, someone has been doing their homework! But we both know it’ll take them ages. The Dwarves, the Qitari, the Pixies, everyone and their mother asking them for help. And now they’ve got to make friends with the Ondo, I’ve no doubt it’ll be some time indeed before they come upon our meeting ground.” Emet-Selch says but Ardbert doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t even really move. Emet-Selch reaches over, a light touch to Ardbert’s chin to get him to look at him. “Don’t fret,” he says, “there is still yet more to the story.”

“It’s like you said,” Ardbert responds, though he looks at him now at least, “it’s worst of all to have hope and have it taken.”

“Don’t worry about that now,” Emet-Selch responds easily, his voice soft and almost reassuring. In his hand appears a long strip of black material. He moves behind Ardbert and draws it up, around his eyes, as a blindfold. 

It blocks all the light, and Ardbert breathes in a gasp. “What—”

“Shh, it’s okay now,” Emet-Selch responds, pressing himself up close to Ardbert. One hand is at on his shoulder, the other travels down his chest. His lips are very close to Ardbert’s ear, speaking those sweet siren songs to him. “Remember that night? How beautifully the stars glowed for us.” His wandering hands make it to the fastening of Ardbert’s pants, which he undoes with deft fingers as he speaks. Ardbert is rigid in his touch, barely remembering to breathe, but he does not ask him to stop and he does not push him away. No, it is anticipation that floods his body. It is _desire_ that courses through his veins. “Imagine it with me, won’t you? The sky painted in shimmering black and silver. And the stars in their course, each one distant and yet together.”

It’s hard to imagine anything once Emet-Selch’s fingers find their mark, moving past his smallclothes and wrapping themselves around his cock, but he tries anyway, thinking back to how beautiful it had been when they had lain together, under the stars, at the top of the Laxan Loft, not a care in the world.

Emet-Selch imagines it, too, and for a moment he can swear he _sees_ Emet-Selch’s vision of it, like the shared touch of their souls allows these strong thoughts to permeate between them. But it’s only a moment because all at once it feels too much, more points of contact than he could possibly have hands.

Something wraps around his ankles, holding him still,  and something else  wraps around his wrists to bind him. Another around his throat which tears a cry from him, overwhelmed by every new touch after being starved for it for so long. He doesn’t understand how Emet-Selch is doing it, he cannot see to even begin  to make sense, but in the complexity of every new point of contact he does not feel scared. No, he feels safe in Emet-Selch’s arms, and even in his bonds. 

Emet-Selch does not relent. He strokes him with the same fervor, the same reverence, he’s seen on him before. Ardbert moans, giving into the pleasure, leaning into the bonds and back against Emet-Selch’s solid and yet incorporeal body. 

“There, is it not easier to let someone else hold you?” Emet-Selch asks, and Ardbert nods. How easy it is, to give in, how easy it is to let Emet-Selch take care of him. To let him touch and prod and comfort him. “Imagine,” he bids him again, “that it is only you and only I, and that is all that matters for a little while. Lay down your burdens, Warrior.”

Ardbert is happy to do what he says, and it’s so easy when he’s held so. Something snakes around his middle and holds him there, too, almost like a lover’s embrace, and with every new bond he feels himself giving in more, thoughts escaping him and moving far, far away. Until there is only them, and only this, and only the way they imagine the night sky. 

And, of course, Emet-Selch’s touch. Emet-Selch touches him like he understands everything about him, like he knows all the right places to really make him needy. He’s hard and aching already, supported by Emet-Selch and basking in it, his thoughts growing more incoherent by the minute, unable to form words but only to give himself to this decadent pleasure that only Emet-Selch can offer him.

“Remember,” Emet-Selch says, kissing his ear gently. It sounds like a prayer on his lips. Gods, who knew that they could worship so fervently? 

He does not know how he could ever forget that night, or this man. He does not ever want to. Emet-Selch takes him to the edge and helps him to his climax, leaving Ardbert shaking in his arms and in his binds. But Emet-Selch does not stop there, never asking for a touch in return, never allowing it. But over and over he brings Ardbert sweet release. Until his mind can no longer focus on the details of the night sky. Until the problems of the world are all but forgotten. Until he swears his soul might just burst and fuse with the Ascian behind him.

And after all of the sublime pleasure has ceased, Emet-Selch pulls him into bed. He strips him bare but leaves him blindfolded, touching him everywhere and soothing skin made oversensitive by ghostly bonds. Ardbert falls asleep in Emet-Selch’s arms, too far gone to stay awake any longer. In the light-soaked room, Emet-Selch whispers memories of a man too long ago forgotten like hymns to the darkness.


End file.
